In an Old Metropolis Once We Lived

When I put my first step 

In a novel burg

I look for a country-liquor store

Thereafter moving to some old bookshop:

I suck the burns 

Of failed poets.

Sympathizing their life

I move ahead to the finest restaurant 

And ask:

Oi mate, what's special here?

But when I cross the flower market

Of the old city

I picture them calling me a Friday-priest.

Yet when I begged Allah for a red rose

He chuckled and handed over

The love of my life

As sacred as I dress before going to the mosque

On Fridays.

Md Mehedi Hasan's poems have been published in The Daily Star, The Daily Observer, The Independent, The Wagon Magazine (Chennai, India) and also in some other literary magazines.